When the Game Stops Feeling Like Fun: A Quiet Reflection on Digital Addiction and the Cost of Starlight

I used to think gambling was just entertainment—until I noticed how my clients would stare at screens long after midnight, their fingers trembling not from luck, but from loneliness.

I work with digital dopamine loops now—not as a strategist, but as a witness. Every spin feels like a whisper from a star that flickers once and dies. The reels don’t pay. They promise.

In my therapy practice, I met women who said: ‘I only play to remember who I am.’ Not for money. Not for thrill. For the quiet rhythm between wins—the space where breath slows down.

The RTP charts look clinical: 96% sounds generous—but what does it mean when your heart is empty? When you’ve spent £80 and still see no light?

I don’t recommend chasing jackpots or free spins like fire. I ask: What does your game mean to you? Is it escape? Or is it echo?

There’s beauty in the pause—the lavender-gray-blue glow of a screen at 2am, when the music stops and all you feel is silence.

We don’t play to win. We play to remember who we are.